The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality

From the Archives – Is there a problem with the current idea of diversity? Walter Benn Michaels, professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago, argues that our cultural focus on identity might allow economic inequalities to flourish. His book on the subject is “The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality” (Metropolitan Books, 2006). He joined us in November to talk about it.